Do dogs dream? Can there be a graveyard for books? Is the urge to kill someone brutal? These are some of the ideas that Nasir Abbas Nayyar has put across in his latest collection of short stories Aik Zamana Khatm Hua Hai [An Era Has Ended].
This is his fourth collection and it has to be said, with a great deal of certitude, that the writer who a little more than a decade ago shot to literary fame as a critic, and is inarguably the most influential critic of his generation is going from strength to strength in fiction writing. His strength stems from multiple sources; scholarliness, creativity and a fertile mind are just three of them.